


The Soil Darling

by YellowDistress



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), post Captain America Civil War - Fandom
Genre: Buried Alive, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Poor Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowDistress/pseuds/YellowDistress
Summary: Peter is buried alive.





	The Soil Darling

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mess, and short but I felt the need to write it down! I hope you enjoy, let me know if ya'll wanna know more about this mystery man haha!
> 
> Also I totally made up the location I just google various counties things like that.

Distance did not work.

Physical or emotional sense, it was stupid to assume Tony’s name and face could be shielded by something as fickle as that. Distance. The distance he had felt from his father, or the physical distance from his mother when she left on another trip. Distance, after Ultron, when Pepper could not look him in the eyes without knowing it had been his doing that had unearthed such a machine. When he had wanted that armor around the world, to protect it, to protect everything and everyone from some unknown threat. He was still looked at stupid for such things.

Distance, like the kind between himself and Steve Rogers, quite possibly the most fascinating form in that it was all physical and emotional, and mental. They were on different spectrums of thinking, nothing close. No responsibility, and where could they go from that if they could not take on what their actions left behind? He still remembered that woman’s eyes as she shoved the picture of her dead son into Tony’s chest and it left a singed feeling in his skin, behind his neck and into his skull where the headache had formed, and he had brushed it away. Garbage disposals.

Distance, like the rest of the team who looked at him as if he had done something so terrible. As if he had been the one to rip them to shreds. He had his faults, but so did Rogers, everyone did and yet he was the only one that the fingers found, and so he returned his fingers in a quite adult manner, thank you very much. So very fucking much. Tony grew up on instinct, on survival, maybe not in the way the top ten percent lived – but fuck – fuck – Howard Stark? Surviving that man? That was a whole feat of its own, and he passed with flying colors, scathed but alive. That was enough. Rogers had lied. Distance was a joke.

Tony wondered why he missed any of them, but he did, every single night.

Then there had been the kid. Tony’s bruised face, but the kid, smiling – just fucking glad to be there and Tony knew the distance would have to be instated the minute the boy walked to the seventh floor of his apartment building. Why?

Because Tony was alone. He was lonely. Loneliness – a notion. An idea. A concept. Tony knew it bred attachment where attachment was dangerous. Tony himself was dangerous: Killian, Vanko, Hammer. All results of some sort of revenge scheme against Tony or his family. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey had all suffered for such things, and the kid wasn’t going to be added to that list. It was why he could never be a father. He was so lonely, but he couldn’t be there. At least not physically, even if he saw some sort of relief in passing his crown down to someone who could actually use it.

Tony was alone, and it was dangerous. It was dangerous for the kid.

Peter Parker could not be the collateral of his isolation.

Pepper came back, like something lovely. Eventually. Tony kept his distance, Happy handled everything, but then the ferry boat bullshit. Then more bullshit – and he took the suit. Not his brightest moment as a mentor, but it had all worked out in the end. And yet they ended up in the moment of distress because the distance did not work. Pictures happened, Peter started that internship. It was one fucking photo on some blog site, and somehow it got to the guy.

Guy did not have a name.

Not that Tony knew of anyway.

Just a live feed, from underground in a casket, buried six feet where the kid was squirming, running out of air.

Dying.

And one note:

_“I find Tony Stark intriguing. As well as his projects.”_

Children were not projects, unless one asked Howard Stark and Tony doubted he had come back just to suffocate him with this event. Tony could hardly refrain, watching the grainy black and white footage as Peter struggled to draw air into his lungs and Tony gripped the papers on his desk and looked back at Rhodey, his new legs, standing upright and he was on the phone and there were suits out and about – scanning. God, would he have to chip the kid like a fucking dog?

“Where, Rhodes?”

“We’re getting a radius –“

“Now!”

“Tony, we’re trying, we have to trace the feed and –“

“Find him!”

The attachment was different. The distance was different. He had maintained it, but the kid was his responsibility and he imagined Charles Spencer being crushed under a building wondering how the heroes from his own country had brought about his demise elsewhere. Imagined Peter thinking Tony was coming – trusting so wholeheartedly when there was no reason to. Tony had never given him any reason to trust him, and he was there, not saving him. Just – hardly breathing. Distance, too much of it was like a non-existent thing. God, could he ever speak to the kid again after this? Maybe he could convince May to pack up, move the kid and his aunt to some farm – get him a nice dog.

Tony looked back at the screen. Live feed. Live feed. Cocky bastard had wanted them to find Peter. This was all a game – a game – silly. Stupid.

Peter’s eyes opened, the casket was dark, but the camera illuminated his eyes. And tears, and Tony inhaled, grabbed the keyboard and slung it to the side. Jarvis was dead, Friday was still top-notch and yet they were struggling to narrow the radius enough. Enough to – to – get to him and save him and yeah, yeah he was going to move the kid to some farm, even if May said no. He had to, New York wasn’t safe anymore – was it? Couldn’t be, because Tony had ruined it for him.

Then Rhodey:

“Some…some rural town Upstate…in Orleans County. Raphael Lake Side?”

_And go._

Flying had once been freeing, but now, Tony thought he associated it with people falling from airplanes and children being buried alive in his name and a sacrifice in his honor. But he flew, and he expected to save him – rescuing. Rescuing further. There was nothing more murderous than losing something he loved to other thoughts, thoughts of doubt and memories. Rhodey falling and falling and falling – and now it was just flying and speeding to get to someone that didn’t deserve to be in the place they were. They were in that place because of who Tony was and what and what…Well, what he carried. This was a generational curse.

“Friday, get us the location.”

“At this speed, ETA is ten minutes.”

“Faster.”

“Boss, thrusters are –“

“Faster.”

There was no arguing with that voice that Howard had taught him, maybe one of the only useful things his father had passed onto him. Along with eyes that could hold an intense amount of rage, but also pain, the ability to make people believe him through one glance. To convey everything, and the kid was like that. For someone who didn’t share an ounce of Stark DNA sometimes it was startling how similar they really were. Maybe that was why that feral need to protect and teach had arisen upon meeting the kid. Not just because of Peter’s intellect, but because of his driving motion, what he believed in.

Tony was so fucking sorry.

“Right below, Boss. We got a heat signature.”

“Is he…” Tony couldn’t get the words out, but he was already lowering and lowering.

“He’s alive.”

Relief filled his chest. Tony touched down onto the soil, it could have screamed, but there was nothing but silence and bugs and Tony fell to his knees, screen lighting up with the red outline of a body moving back and forth below and Tony wanted to speak words of reassurance, but he couldn’t because – because well he was too busy digging the metal hands into the ground and pulling the earth up at its seams where it was sewn into the casket. He dug, and he breathed and gasped and sweat clung to him despite the February cold. A fifteen-year-old had no business existing in such a deep dark life, and Tony regretted ever involving him. He should not have.

_Please, please, please._

This person – he was supposed to protect and there he was, digging him from a grave that didn’t _work_. Life and earth, no that didn’t go together, soil and smothering never should have kissed. Tony ground his teeth and he was so angry he could have choked the life out of whoever did this, and yet they still had no name. No nothing, just this this this this this this this – soil.

Marble.

Casket.

And Tony inhaled, knowing very well what he was about to open and when he did, he wondered if the boy would still have enough air to breathe. His nose was filling with dirt and when the world welcomed the person underneath, the face of Peter Parker appeared. Red and splotchy and yet pale all at the same time. His eyes went wide upon the release and in one swift motion the suit was opening and Tony was falling out, practically collapsing onto the kid. Peter was gasping, inhaling, as if he was in the middle of a panic attack, and maybe he was. Tony imagined he’d hyperventilate too if he was buried underground and the smell of dirt and the worms wiggling around were almost nauseating and yet it was so cold – Tony was just thankful it wasn’t snowing.

That the ground wasn’t frozen with Peter lying beneath.

It felt like pulling an infant from a crib in the most morbid way. Peter didn’t reach for him, but Tony pushed his hands under the kid and pulled upward. Crouched on his knees, Peter sat up into his chest, the kid’s trembling hands grabbing his shirt and shaking, shaking, shaking and Tony looked over the boy’s shoulder into the casket, into the padding, and carved into the silk was a simple phrase.

_“Protect your inventions, Stark. Never know, I might decide you’re undeserving of them.”_

The thing was, Tony _was_ undeserving. But Peter was no invention, he was a kid and –

“M-Mister…Mister Stark, I…”

“It’s okay,” Tony settled his chin on the kid’s head, awkward in the embrace but even he, in all of his emotional constipation knew when physical touch was the only thing to hold a person into reality, “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“I thought…he said I was going to die.”

Tony shut his eyes, wanted to grab someone’s throat but instead took the nape of Peter’s neck, his hair and gently tugged him back. Peter looked dazed, confused and teary, but Tony asked, bending to eye level, “Who?”

“I don’t…” Peter coughed, then, “I don’t know he just…”

A pause, Peter looked around, but Tony held his head back into place, grounded him, kept him there in that moment.

“He said he’s taking down an empire…And to do that, you remove the heirs.”

That was _funny_. But massively unnerving. Tony thought years of abuse from criminals, people who wanted revenge had turned him into someone who could hardly look at these things the same. Peter’s throat bobbed, then…

“Then you checkmate…and remove the king.”

Tony stared, and from the look of it, the kid genuinely believed what he had been told. Believed it to the extent of fear, or maybe it was because Peter had just been buried alive. Tony didn’t know, he didn’t ask, he just nodded, and pretended he knew because that was the only way to keep this situation calm. Peter had blood dried on his head, around his hair in clumps. He wondered how wrong this could all go.

He pulled Peter close again, he smelled like the earth and Tony shut his eyes and imagined a world where something wasn’t his fault.


End file.
